


The Road Doesn't Seem So Long (When You're With Me)

by cairistiona13



Category: EXO (Band), K-pop
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Boats and Ships, Dragons, Fantasy, Gargoyles - Freeform, M/M, Maps, Mercenaries, Monster Hunters, Monsters, Orphanage, Orphans, Sirens, Storms, Treasure Hunting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 15:34:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5876308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cairistiona13/pseuds/cairistiona13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kyungsoo doesn’t remember how he’d arrived at the orphanage, but the story fuels his dreams and his fantasies for many, many years after that. Armed with just his brain and his lifelong friend Chanyeol, Kyungsoo sets out on a dangerous and exciting, monster-filled quest, crossing land and sea, to find out where he came from and where his true home really is.</p><p>Translated into Vietnamese <a href="https://vothan30597.wordpress.com/couples-fic-2/oneshot/">here</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Road Doesn't Seem So Long (When You're With Me)

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by the animated film Anastasia, the Silver Phoenix books by Cindy Pon, The Two Princesses of Bamarre by Gail Carson Levine, Final Fantasy, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Pokémon, and various MAMA!AU adventure/quest fanfics (particularly Bee's Moonlight and my own #ffau). I hope it does it all justice, and I hope you like it.  
> Gowan (daisy) and Merle (blackbird) are both archaic Scottish words. I figured it fit.

Kyungsoo doesn’t remember how he’d come to the orphanage, as he’d probably only been three years old at the time, but he knows the story off by heart, and it fuels his dreams and his fantasies for many, many years after that.

The story that he knows came mostly from Chanyeol, who was the first person who found him, as a little boy wrapped in a blanket and left on the doorstep of the orphanage.

Chanyeol had only been three when he’d found Kyungsoo. He’d been awake past bedtime because of the thunderstorm—Chanyeol’s never liked thunder—, and he’d been wandering in the corridor when he’d heard crying outside. Chanyeol had gone to the front door, where he’d found the child, and then pulled him inside. Kyungsoo had started crying even louder in surprise, and Chanyeol had pulled him into his tiny baby arms the way Sister Sunkyu had held him, and rocked him until he stopped. But by that point, Kyungsoo’s crying had alerted the Sisters, who had scolded Chanyeol for being out of bed, before taking Kyungsoo aside and drying him and asking him his name.

“You didn’t know your own name,” Chanyeol had said the first time. “Sister Yuri thought you were just scared then, but you’ve never remembered it, have you?”

In the end, it had been Chanyeol who had said, “Can we call him Kyungsoo? He looks like a Kyungsoo,” and that had been it. The new little boy was Kyungsoo, and for the next few years Chanyeol barely ever let him out of his sight.

Kyungsoo has got little out of the Sisters in the years following. A villager from down in the valley had brought him, but he hadn’t been their child.

“You’d travelled far,” Sister Sooyoung had told him. “That’s all they’d tell me. You’re from far away, Kyungsoo.”

 _Far away_ was all he’d wanted to be for years. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the orphanage, but nobody adopted him, and it was just _boring_ there. Chanyeol had been adopted once, for a week, by a couple down in the village. It hadn’t lasted. Chanyeol had whispered that they hadn’t been right, but Kyungsoo’s always thought that Chanyeol is scared to leave.

They grew up together, instead, sharing everything they could. When they were both small they shared clothes, but then Chanyeol shot up like a beanpole around fifteen and Kyungsoo never grew any taller, settling somewhere around Chanyeol’s shoulders. Chanyeol liked to joke he only came up to his armpits.

Kyungsoo just got Chanyeol’s leftovers, after that. He coped.

Together they made up stories about where Kyungsoo had come from. They both had an affinity for dragons, loving the drawings of them in storybooks, and they decided that a dragon had brought him from far away, leaving him in the care of the village. They weren’t scared that the dragon had hurt his family, because dragons were nice and liked company. Maybe they’d asked him to save their baby boy from something dangerous.

Kyungsoo, even at eighteen, secretly still wants the dragon story to be true. He’s just not sure if Chanyeol believes in dragons any more.

 

They can’t stay at the orphanage forever. Two weeks after Kyungsoo’s eighteenth birthday, three new orphans, young sisters whose parents had died in an unfortunate incident involving a giant squid, arrive. Their names are Hyerin, Jinah and Sooyoung—which quickly earns her favour with Sister Sooyoung—and they’re adorable.

“We need your room,” Sister Yuri says, as kindly as possible. Kyungsoo understands, and tells her she doesn’t need to explain any further. He doesn’t know where Chanyeol is, but he’ll understand too. Probably.

“It’s alright,” he says. “I have to face the world at some point.”

He packs his belongings—mostly hand-me-downs that may have been Chanyeol’s clothes from when he was fourteen and hadn’t yet grown, and two well-worn paperbacks, one that’s missing its front cover—into a thick burlap sack that Sister Yoona had found under the Grand Staircase—also known as their only staircase.

Chanyeol catches him when he’s just about finished and he takes one look at the burlap sack, with its string ties that are so short they don’t shut properly, and with patches missing, before grinning.

“Where are we off to?” he asks. “Some great adventure?”

Kyungsoo is almost taken aback by his straight-forwardness. “We?” he asks.

“Please don’t tell me you’d been about to leave on your own,” Chanyeol scolds, though the effect is ruined by the gigantic smile on his face. “You’d get eaten alive on day one. You need me to make sure you don’t.” He flexes a rather unimpressive-looking bicep and looks proud when it moves slightly.

Kyungsoo just looks at him.

“And I’d miss you,” Chanyeol says. “Obviously.”

This sounds more like Chanyeol, who is, half of the time, just a giant baby. Kyungsoo sighs, but does his best to show he’s not cross, just amused. “Alright,” he says. “The Sisters need our room anyway. We may as well go together.”

The smile on Chanyeol’s face could light up the sky. Kyungsoo doesn’t tell him that he’s glad he offered, because he’d been too afraid Chanyeol would say no if he’d asked—even though secretly he knows Chanyeol never would have.

But asking Chanyeol would have made it real, and secretly Kyungsoo doesn’t want to leave the only home he’s ever known.

“Besides,” Kyungsoo muses aloud. “You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself if I wasn’t around to hold your hand.”

Chanyeol just laughs.

 

Chanyeol and Kyungsoo leave the next morning. Chanyeol’s belongings are in a small leather knapsack, because Sister Yoona couldn’t find another burlap sack, and what can fit in Kyungsoo’s is in there, squished in at the top. Chanyeol insists on carrying both, though Kyungsoo doesn’t understand why.

Kyungsoo had taken one last look at their room, with the pink bunny rabbits sitting on the desk from where the little girls had begun to move in. He’d given the Sisters one last hug—and then they’d left without looking back. Kyungsoo holds Chanyeol’s arm—not because he’s scared, but because he can see how Chanyeol is trembling.

It’s strange, once out of the orphanage. The further away they get, walking down the old dirt path to the village in the valley, the more weight seems to lift from his shoulders. He feels like he can breathe again after a long time trapped under rocks. He’d never realised how stifling life in the orphanage had been and how he’d wanted to leave for years.

When they’re halfway between the orphanage and the village, not another person in sight for miles around, Kyungsoo stops in his tracks, tips his head back, and whoops as loudly as he can.

Chanyeol jumps, before turning to look at him with confusion written all over his face.

“I’m free,” Kyungsoo says. “We’re free—to do whatever we want, to go wherever we want, don’t you see?”

“Sure,” Chanyeol says. “Maybe we can find a dragon and fly off into the sunset?”

Kyungsoo isn’t sure if he’s joking or not, but he doesn’t let it deter him. “Race you to that tree,” he says, pointing down the path to a huge tree that curves over the road. He doesn’t give Chanyeol any time; just begins to run towards it.

Chanyeol gives a jokey groan, as he’s laden with their belongings, but gives chase like Kyungsoo had known he would.

Further down the road, they begin to see the village. It’s not particularly big, but anything is bigger than the lonely orphanage kept out of the way, up the hill. All the buildings are small and thatched, and there appear to be multiple small farms throughout; enough milk and eggs to feed each family, Kyungsoo presumes.

He doesn’t get to think on it for much longer, as Chanyeol taps him on the shoulder and they’re off again, chasing each other down the hill.

This is how they reach the village; both of them out of breath from races down the hill, both sweating in uncomfortable places, and both giggling like small children.

They don’t stay like it for long, calming themselves when they look around the village. There are people everywhere, bustling about. Kyungsoo doesn’t know where to look, where to go, first.

“Where to, Boss?” Chanyeol asks jokily. Kyungsoo shrugs.

“Maybe we should…find someone who remembers fifteen years ago?” Kyungsoo asks. “We could find out where I came from that way.”

It should be easy to find someone in a village so small and unchanging, but everyone is so busy that Kyungsoo doesn’t want to bother them.

In the end, a young farmer, his face covered in dirt and his arms darkened by the sun, tells them to go to the old Seer, and points them in the direction of his hut; an old wattle-and-daub building that has clearly withstood all manner of weather. It stands proud in the centre of the village. “He’ll be happy to see you,” the young man says, and turns away to tend to his chickens.

The Seer is an old man with long white hair. He’s dressed in a coarse but well-made robe that reaches the floor. He smiles upon opening the door.

“I knew you would come,” he says, and beckons them inside with a crooked finger.

The inside of the hut is spacious but sparse; very few belongings. The hut appears to be one large room split up into sections; there is a bed in one corner hidden by a hanging curtain, and in another corner an old metal kettle.

The Seer settles in the only chair in the room, a straight-backed wicker affair. Kyungsoo and Chanyeol kneel on the floor on mats. Kyungsoo feels like a little boy waiting to be told a fairy tale or legend. He supposes he is, somewhat.

The Seer explains that fifteen years ago, when he’d been spryer, a group of slave traders had come through their village. They had at first tried to sell them slaves, and when that had failed, for the villagers had no money, they had tried to take the villagers for their slaves.

“I told them that they should leave the village and never return,” the Seer says, “for the fates had determined that they may die nearby.” He gives a small smile. “It was untrue. I never Saw anything for any of the slavers, but it meant they would leave.”

Kyungsoo doesn’t understand how any of this connects to him, until the old man continues.

“You were amongst the slaves, dear lad,” the Seer says, stretching out a shaky old finger. He taps Kyungsoo lightly on the head. “Just a wee bairn, but you were a slave. I don’t know what they thought they were going to do with you.”

Kyungsoo’s eyes widen. A slave? He’d almost been a slave. He opens his mouth to ask questions, but the Seer raises his finger to his mouth slowly. Kyungsoo shuts his.

“A young lad was able to get you away from the slavers and into my hut. I hid you under the floorboards.” He points across the room towards the bed. “You did well, never crying, like you knew it was your only way to escape your fate. The slavers knew they had lost you, but they would never find you again.”

Chanyeol takes Kyungsoo’s hand and squeezes. Kyungsoo jumps, because he’d almost forgotten that Chanyeol’s there as well, alongside him. He wonders what Chanyeol thinks of it all.

“What happened to the young man?” Chanyeol asks.

The Seer turns his eyes towards Chanyeol, who doesn’t cower, just steadily looks back into the Seer’s eyes. “He died,” the Seer says. If he was expecting them to flinch, he must be disappointed, because Chanyeol doesn’t blink, and Kyungsoo keeps his face neutral. “He was killed by the slavers for his insubordination.”

Kyungsoo shuts his eyes, briefly, to mourn the man who’d rescued him. He’d lost his own life at the expense of Kyungsoo’s. He wishes he could thank the man.

“Do not pity him,” the Seer says, “for he’d not want it. He made his decision an’ he chose his fate. He knew what might happen if he was caught. He just couldn’t let you die without knowing life as a free man.”

“You know a lot,” Chanyeol says. “Do you know where Kyungsoo, where the slave traders, came from?”

The Seer stares at Chanyeol. “As it happens, I do. The young lad talked wi’ me for some time. I know that they had come from o’erseas, from Merle. Kyungsoo had been picked up from Mithrim, which is inland from the port.”

Merle is an island, over from Gowan, where they farm wonderful blackberries and the most exquisite honey. It was named for the indigenous blackbirds that live there—or maybe the blackbirds are named after the island; Kyungsoo isn’t quite sure, in just the same way that he’s been told that Gowan and daisies are related, but he isn’t sure if their home is named for the daisies or the other way round. Kyungsoo has never met anyone from Merle. He doesn’t even know what language they speak there; it hadn’t been covered in their education with the Sisters.

“We should go,” Kyungsoo says. “We should go to Mythril—”

“Mithrim,” the Seer corrects, with a small smile.

“—and see if we can find anyone who remembers me, my family.”

“Are you sure you want to do that, lad?” the Seer asks. “You never know what you might find.”

“I...I have to know,” Kyungsoo says. “I have to know who my parents were, why I ended up in slavery.”

“Awright, dear lad,” the Seer says. The more he talks, the more his accent comes out, thick and full. Kyungsoo’s never heard anything quite like it before. “We’ll fix you up wi’ summ’in to take youse to the next village. You’ll be able to plan for you’ trip there, lads.”

He lends them the help of the young man who’d indicated the Seer’s hut, and two horses, which they strap their belongings onto somewhat awkwardly.

Neither Kyungsoo, nor Chanyeol, have ever been on a horse before, so when they’re out of sight of the village, the young man, whose name turns out to be Minho, helps Chanyeol up onto the stallion, black with white ears and socks, behind Kyungsoo.

“He can take your weight,” Minho reassures them. “He’s a strong old boy.”

Minho climbs onto the other horse, a grey dappled mare, and leads them through the empty wilderness and towards their future adventure.

 

It takes them the rest of the day to reach the next village, which is called Rowley. It’s a bigger, more sprawling version of the village they’ve just left.

Minho takes the horses once they arrive and leaves them with a small bag of money that the Seer had given him; enough to rent a room for the night and maybe get a meal, but no more.

“You’ll have to find your own way of making money,” he says, and shrugs. “We can’t help you any more than this, I’m afraid.”

Kyungsoo understands, and he thanks him. They wait for Minho and the horses to be lost in the distance before heading to the nearest inn.

The innkeeper raises an eyebrow at them, lips quirked upwards, when they ask for one room.

They receive the cheapest room, a small affair with one single bed, a thin coverlet spread over the bed for warmth. They dump their belongings there and lock the room, before heading down to ask the innkeeper about where to find work.

After asking about what their strengths are, the innkeeper points Chanyeol in the direction of a man called Yifan who is apparently looking for an apprentice, although apprentice of what Kyungsoo isn’t sure, and Kyungsoo in the direction of the village librarian; a woman called Sungmi.

Sungmi is only in her mid-twenties and looking for a cartographer—or at the very least someone smart enough to help her with maps. Kyungsoo has never worked with maps before, but he enjoys the challenge.

The hours working on the maps turn into days, which turn into weeks. The maps grow bigger and more exciting as Sungmi begins to trust him and explain his real job—deciphering treasure maps for treasure hunters. Kyungsoo discovers a particular knack for locating treasure exactly from the fewest amount of dotted lines and ‘x’s on a somewhat inexact, indistinct and _especially_ vague map. It takes Kyungsoo’s mind off his family, and the pay is excellent—especially when treasure hunters give him a cut of what they find. Kyungsoo alone can soon afford to keep their room for weeks on end and they can afford meals more substantial than the gruel they’d had their first night in the tiny, one-bed room they’d kept. The innkeeper still waggles his eyebrows at them and makes strange remarks about “big days” and “expecting things”. Kyungsoo doesn’t get it. He thinks it must be a quirk of the innkeeper. He’s nice enough, anyway.

On the opposite end of the spectrum from Kyungsoo’s strange but enjoyable job, Chanyeol’s job would be described by many as _really exciting_ , for he’d been apprenticed to a mercenary, and a very good one at that. Yifan always seems to be in demand, whether it’s to kill a flock of winged sheep trying to eat carrots—Kyungsoo hadn’t realised that sheep ate carrots (in fact, he thinks they don’t)—or a savage two-headed creature that looks rather like “a man with two heads”, as succinctly described by Chanyeol. They’d killed it by dumping water over its head, apparently. He hopes they didn’t tell the man who’d asked (and paid) them to kill it because it’s quite disappointing and anti-climactic to imagine. What is far less disappointing is the state of Chanyeol’s arms, which build in muscle from using his sword—which Kyungsoo finds beautiful; all silver and shiny and _far_ too heavy for Kyungsoo to lift—on a daily basis. Now when Chanyeol flexes, his biceps bulge in a way that’s rather pleasing to the eye. Kyungsoo approves, though he’d never say so.

Chanyeol complains every day that he still hasn’t seen a dragon and is always very disappointed about it. Kyungsoo is quite pleased by the realisation that Chanyeol is still interested in dragons. At least Kyungsoo isn’t alone in this.

 

It’s a perfectly normal day well into their third month in this nice village when something perfectly abnormal happens: two young treasure hunters ask to borrow Kyungsoo.

And Chanyeol.

Kyungsoo and Chanyeol haven’t worked together since they moved to the village, and Kyungsoo likes it that way, because he thinks that Chanyeol would drive him mad if he had to see him all day. But Chanyeol is positively ecstatic at the prospect of them working together, so Kyungsoo can’t find it in him to refuse. Besides, he’s never been on the active side of treasure hunting before.

From what he can tell from a very bad explanation, the two young men—Jongin and Yixing—aren’t very good at reading maps, nor are they very good at fighting monsters.

“It’s a huuuuuge underground dungeon,” Jongin, a young and tanned man almost as tall as Chanyeol, if not as solidly built, explains. Yixing’s going through it with Chanyeol, Kyungsoo has gathered. He wonders if Yixing’s explanation is better than Jongin’s. “We don’t have the manpower to go down there alone. We need your assistance to mark the map as we go, and we need your merc’s help with defeating monsters.”

Kyungsoo doesn’t understand the _your_. “He can be your merc,” he says, instead. “That’s kind of what he is; a sword for hire.”

Jongin rolls his eyes. “You know what I mean,” he says.

Kyungsoo doesn’t, but he doesn’t say so. “Okay,” he says instead. “Let’s do it. I know Chanyeol’s excited. Something about large monsters?”

Jongin nods frantically. “The largest,” he says. “But I know he can handle it. He seems a capable sort.”

“That he is,” Kyungsoo says, nodding his head. Jongin smirks. Kyungsoo frowns. “When shall we leave?”

They arrange to leave early the next morning, earlier than Chanyeol usually leaves on his missions with or for Yifan—recently he’s been going out alone, and Kyungsoo would never say that he worries about Chanyeol not coming back, but he really does—which gives them enough time to pack supplies. Kyungsoo organises a few days off from work with Sungmi and then heads to the market to buy trail mix, because he’s not entirely sure what one prepares for a trek through a very large dungeon.

Chanyeol laughs at Kyungsoo’s bag of trail mix and dried meat and his large flask of water when he sees them, but he knows better than to say anything. In comparison, his preparation is slight, just checking that his armour is clean, his sword sharp, and his lantern—a cone shape filled with oil, usually ensconced in the wall, but that Chanyeol had taken to carrying around like a candle—freshly fuelled. However, he does consent to a flask of water and a small paper bag of nuts. Kyungsoo has to hide his smile.

They eat a good meal of chicken and vegetable stew, washed down with real ale, and then curl up in bed for an early night. As always, Chanyeol is like a furnace against Kyungsoo’s back, and he finds himself sinking into the warmth as he drifts off.

 

Mere hours into the next morning, Kyungsoo realises why he is not a treasure hunter, and why he is not usually on the _active_ side of his cartography; he really, really hates dungeons.

They had left early that morning and met up with Jongin and Yixing, who turns out to be slight with a torso longer than his legs, and is only half a hand-span taller than Kyungsoo. Neither man seems terribly talkative, which explains why they get on so well together. They don’t have a Chanyeol.

Chanyeol seems to take this opportunity to be Chanyeol, and he asks them far too many questions, flailing his arms about. He nearly hits Kyungsoo in the face multiple times, which happens so often it’s positively routine. Kyungsoo deals with it the way he always does; he grabs Chanyeol’s hand and pins it down between them. There’s not a lot he can do with the other hand, so he just tells the idiot to calm down and keeps on walking.

Kyungsoo enjoys his own peace and quiet, but it’s strange to be with two new people and none of them be talking, so he enjoys the inanity of Chanyeol’s questions and the patient answers of the treasure hunters. He learns that Jongin is from a sheep-farming family and his specialities are getting rid of snakes and blowing things up.

Yixing won’t talk about himself, but Jongin tells them that he’s both an excellent healer and extremely good at picking locks and laying traps.

The map they had given Kyungsoo is the most difficult he’s ever had to decipher, but maybe being out in the wilderness and watching Chanyeol brandish his sword about in a threatening manner, getting rid of small beasts, helps, because it only takes them two hours to find the dungeons.

They don’t seem particularly imposing from the front, just a pile of unassuming rocks in the ground, but once Yixing’s done some clever fingerwork to get them inside the entrance without being seen, Kyungsoo realises it really is enormous.

Chanyeol and Jongin light their oil and candles, the firelight spreading out around the walls, and Kyungsoo watches the tunnel spread out before them, seemingly endless, and gulps.

Right now, Kyungsoo is covered in spiders. His map has scribbles all across from where he’s marked particularly vicious beasts—nothing Chanyeol couldn’t handle, of course, though it pains Kyungsoo to admit it—along with staircases down to the next floor below. He’s starting to wish that he’d brought extra paper, as they’re probably on something like the seventh floor down. Each floor is enormous in itself. Kyungsoo could do with a nap, but he’s too important to sleep.

“You could get lost in here,” Kyungsoo says. “You could go to sleep and get eaten.”

“That’s why we have you,” Yixing says, and then he pauses. “The getting lost, not the getting eaten.”

“Thanks,” Kyungsoo says, dryly. “I appreciate it.”

Chanyeol, who Kyungsoo had let go of mere seconds into the dungeon, when a giant spider had decided to make its presence known, crosses towards Kyungsoo from where he’d been toeing the carcass of a creature Kyungsoo can only describe as “the offspring of a cat, a horse and a frog”. It had leaked some blue fumes that they’d all run away from, and Chanyeol had been checking it’s cleared up. It isn’t a good idea to send your only fighter to check on something that might be a poisonous gas, but he’s also the only seemingly fearless member of the group. Jongin had feigned deafness when they’d tried him, and Yixing had conveniently managed to forget how to speak the language. Chanyeol hadn’t asked Kyungsoo.

Chanyeol wraps his arm around Kyungsoo’s shoulders and Kyungsoo leans in for a moment under the excuse of checking his map in the light better. He refuses to seem weak in front of the two hunters.

The two hunters are, as far as Kyungsoo’s concerned, very bad at treasure hunting. They’re certainly very good at getting rid of snakes, at unpicking doors, and at spotting traps. They haven’t yet needed to use Jongin’s explosion knowledge or Yixing’s healing, and Kyungsoo hopes they won’t have to. But honest treasure hunting? They don’t seem to understand the term. They don’t even seem particularly excited by the potential treasure.

“I wonder if there’s a dragon,” Chanyeol says, hopping from foot to foot, “and he’s way down in the basement floor of the dungeon?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Kyungsoo says, stepping over what seems suspiciously and unwelcomingly like the remains of a soldier. Jongin kicks the helmet into Kyungsoo’s path, and Kyungsoo pretends not to notice. “A dragon wouldn’t live here.”

“There are no dragons here anyway,” Yixing says. “We’re on the wrong side of the country for dragons.”

Both Kyungsoo and Chanyeol’s heads whip up to look at him. “Where would you find a dragon?” Kyungsoo asks slowly.

Yixing shrugs. “The west? I know there’s a farm in West Darger that rears dragons.”

Kyungsoo has gone his whole life hoping dragons are real, only to find out that they are—and, what’s more, are reared on the very country they live in. He manages to hold his excitement inside, embarrassed to show it in front of the others, but Chanyeol can’t. He leaps about the place and then lifts Kyungsoo up under his arms, hoisting him up into the air and spinning him around. The lack of ground under his feet is disturbing and unwelcome.

“Put me down,” Kyungsoo demands sharply, and Chanyeol obediently lowers him, slowly and gently, looking sheepish. “Good boy,” Kyungsoo says, and then, to show he’s not really cross, he reaches up to fix Chanyeol’s hair under his helmet, smoothing out his fringe so it’s not in his eyes. Chanyeol leans his head down to allow him better access.

Someone coughs. “If you’re quite finished,” Jongin says, “I think I’ve found the next door.”

Kyungsoo pulls away from Chanyeol somewhat regretfully, and turns to mark the door down on the map.

 

Floor eleven is when things start to get serious. The monsters start to get bigger and harder—Chanyeol has to face down first a Chimera, then a Minotaur, and then three Minotaurs at once. He waits for them to charge at him and then runs them through with his sword, chopping their heads off in neat swings. Kyungsoo finds it an absolute marvel, and can’t stop staring.

The traps also become more complicated to unpick, and the doors to the next scene become devilishly difficult to spot if one isn’t looking for a nigh-invisible door seam.

“I estimate we’re near the end,” Jongin says, panting both from the run and from climbing down so deep into the dungeon. “They’re putting out the big guns now.”

They’re starting to see more human bones now; hunters who had taken the challenge and lost. Looking at them, Kyungsoo is suddenly grateful for Chanyeol’s strength and experience fighting, and he slinks over to slide his smaller hand into Chanyeol’s large one, trying to show his gratitude nonverbally. Chanyeol jumps at the foreign feeling—it’s usually Kyungsoo taking his hand in Kyungsoo’s, Kyungsoo leading, not this—but quickly settles down when he sees that it’s Kyungsoo. He smiles fondly at Kyungsoo and rubs his thumb over the back of his hand; gentle and soothing. Kyungsoo finds himself smiling back, even though he really, _really_ wants to be out of this dungeon.

“I didn’t realise asking them both was going to be like this,” Jongin grumbles.

“It’s cute,” Yixing replies. “You’re just jealous I don’t look at you like that.”

“Am _not_ —” Jongin starts, before there’s an almighty _crash_ as half the wall beside them collapses down on them, the largest Minotaur they’ve ever seen lumbering out.

Kyungsoo lets go of Chanyeol in a panic and scrambles back out of the way of the monster, grabbing at Jongin as he goes and dragging him with him. They press their backs against another piece of wall back the way they’d come, praying that they won’t become Minotaur food in the near future.

It’s as Chanyeol charges forward, sword raised high, when Kyungsoo realises he can’t see Yixing.

He says so.

All the colour drains from Jongin’s face. “No!” he cries out, and in seconds he’s up on his feet and racing back to where the wall had collapsed.

Chanyeol spots Jongin the moment the Minotaur does, and he uses the distraction to get behind it and slice open the backs of its legs, which aren’t hardened like the front. It goes down flailing, black blood pouring out and staining Chanyeol’s armour, and then Chanyeol brings the sword down for the final blow. He only cleans his sword briefly, sheathing it before running over to help Jongin shift chunks of the wall.

They find Yixing, but by that point he’s passed out—but still breathing. They take the time to sit with him, tending to him as best they can with Yixing’s own medical kit. Jongin discovers that Yixing’s left arm and hand are broken, and he rips a strip off his own shirt, tying it into a sling around Yixing’s neck for support.

It takes fifteen minutes for Yixing to open his eyes, during which time they talk a little, deliberately not referencing the dungeon they are in. Instead, they chat about how Jongin and Yixing had first met during a cave they’d both decided to attack alone.

“It was amazing that we’d both even got that far,” Jongin says, tears spilling down his cheeks. “We were both terrible.”

Kyungsoo can’t think of anything comforting to say, so he squeezes Jongin’s shoulder instead.

Finally, Yixing does wake up. “Jongin?” is the first thing he asks.

“I’m here, I’m here,” Jongin says, and he leans down to pepper Yixing’s face with kisses. “You’re alright. I was so worried.”

“Nothing’s going to take me away from you,” Yixing says, and reaches up to touch Jongin’s face.

Kyungsoo turns away as they kiss. Chanyeol is watching them with a small, somewhat wistful look on his face. Kyungsoo has wondered before if Chanyeol ever wants a relationship, wants someone to love and to grow old with, and he supposes that this answers his question.

“If you want, you can stay behind?” Kyungsoo says quietly. “You’ve built a life here, and a good business. You don’t need to tag along for my sake. You can stay and build a family.”

“What, and miss a great adventure, miss learning about your story?” Chanyeol says, smiling softly. “You won’t get rid of me that easily, Soo.” He reaches out to gently massage Kyungsoo’s head with the pads of his fingers. Kyungsoo lets his eyes close, basking in the attention. “You’re stuck with me, whether you want me or not.”

Kyungsoo doesn’t know why he feels so relieved.

 

It takes them another thirty minutes to make their way to the twelfth floor, and already everything is different. There are no monsters down here at all.

“It’s…empty,” Yixing says. They’re going slowly for him, because he thinks he may have fractured a rib. He refuses to leave without treasure, even though Kyungsoo wonders how they’re going to get him back up twelve or so floors. “Do you think…we’re near the…end?”

Kyungsoo sure hopes so. There’s only so much he can take of this, of the darkness, of the spiders, of the lanterns flickering as they threaten to go out (they’ve already gone out so many times that Kyungsoo can’t even count, and Chanyeol’s supply of matches is getting low), of the incessant monsters, of marking the doors and trying to work out a pattern, of trying to avoid traps that might kill him, of his dwindling food supply, of all the dead bodies. Speaking of bodies, there are _far_ too many down here for a floor with no—

And then, out of nowhere, comes a beast so large it fills up the whole dungeon path. It’s blue and has six legs, and a long neck with a snapping mouth, like that of a snake.

It seems fairly easy for Chanyeol to go up and chop the head off at the neck—except that when he does, two grow back in its place almost immediately, and when he hacks a second time, the same happens. Four flailing heads spit poison at them.

“I don’t know how to kill this!” Chanyeol says, scrambling backwards to avoid the poison.

“Don’t cut any more heads off!” Jongin calls from beside Kyungsoo. The three of them had moved as quickly as they were able, trying to get out of the way of the beast.

“This must be…the final…monster,” Yixing says. He looks exhausted and Kyungsoo thinks that if they get out of there alive, he’ll probably be out of action recuperating for quite some time.

Recuperation has him thinking of reading, which reminds Kyungsoo of old stories he’s read, including old legends, which leads him to—

“It’s a form of Hydra!” Kyungsoo shouts.

“That’s great, Soo,” Chanyeol says. “Fantastic to know.” If he weren’t out of breath and terrified, he’d probably sound sarcastic.

“Use the lantern,” Kyungsoo says. “Cauterise the necks after you cut them. Its heads won’t be able to grow back.”

It seems to take a few moments to filter into Chanyeol’s otherwise-occupied brain, but when it does, Kyungsoo can almost see the cogs turning.

“Oh!” Chanyeol exclaims, and then lunges for one of the lanterns. He keeps it close by his side and then hastily lops the head off the nearest neck. He rips a piece of his tunic off and pushes it through the bars of the lantern until it catches in the lit oil, and he rubs it over the stump of flesh until it gets too hot to hold and he drops it. The monster treads on it in its agony, and howls in pain from the additional burn.

The neck doesn’t sprout another head. Kyungsoo rips a chunk of fabric from the bottom of his own tunic and wads it up, tossing it over to Chanyeol, who wastes no time in beheading the Hydra of its next head.

It’s slow work, but eventually all heads are dead. The headless Hydra teeters on its feet before toppling over. Chanyeol throws a flaming rag onto the carcass once they’ve all passed it and watches it go up in flames for a few seconds. Then he turns away and they continue onwards, towards the curve at the end of the corridor.

And then it’s right before them; a filled-in stone doorway. There are two stone heads coming out of the wall on either side of the doorway.

“This is where my explosions come in handy,” Jongin says.

“Or not,” says one of the statues.

It causes them all to jump. Kyungsoo wonders if the fumes from the lantern have made them all hallucinate, because how else does one explain talking statues?

“What’s the password?” the other statue intones drolly.

“Don’t ask them that! They killed the Hydra!” the first statue says. It—he?—sounds excited, a bit like Chanyeol when he’s happy about something. “That’s amazing!”

“Amazing enough to let us in?” Jongin asks.

“Hold up,” the statue says. “I totally didn’t say that. But that thing’s been doing my head in for centuries. He never fed us!”

“We’re statues, Lu Han,” the second statue says. “I’m not sure we can eat anything.”

“I’ve still got some nuts,” Kyungsoo offers. “If you want to try.”

The second statue blinks at him. “Oh,” it—he—says. “That’s very nice of you. Don’t give Lu Han any.” He opens his mouth and Kyungsoo dutifully crosses towards him. He’s quite a bit shorter than the statue’s mouth, so he ends up throwing the nuts up towards him. It’s extremely embarrassing.

It turns out the statues _can_ eat.

“I’m Minseok,” the statue says, mood seemingly brightened after the food. “That other one is annoying, ignore him.”

“You’re so mean to me!” Lu Han whines. “You never let me talk! These are the first people we’ve seen in _so long_ and I can’t even talk to them!”

“I’m so very tempted to let them inside, you know,” Minseok says. “I’ve been stuck listening to you chatter on for _centuries_ now. It’d be nice to have some reprieve.”

“I understand completely,” Kyungsoo says. “Not the centuries part. But yeah.”

He can actually _hear_ Chanyeol’s pout, so he turns away from Minseok to rub Chanyeol behind his enormous ears, now his helmet’s off. “But what would I do without you?”

When he turns back, there’s a strange smile on Minseok’s face.

“I think I will let you in,” Minseok says. “Lu Han and I have been here too long. It’d be nice to see what’s in store for us next. Hopefully we won’t be stuck together.”

“That’s so unfair!” Lu Han shrieks. “You know how I can’t sleep without your snoring! And I don’t like big noises! You’re the only one who could control the Hydra’s stomping! What would I do without you?”

Kyungsoo had thought he’d identified with Minseok, stuck with an excitable being that wants to be with him all the time, but his chest constricts at Lu Han’s heartfelt words. He knows full well that he can’t sleep well without Chanyeol’s warmth pressed along his back, his thighs against the backs of Kyungsoo’s. And he doesn’t know what he or Chanyeol would do without each other. They’ve been together their whole lives and Kyungsoo doesn’t really see a future away from him.

He may have suggested Chanyeol leave, but that’s only because he doesn’t want to be accused of being selfish and keeping Chanyeol all to himself.

“It’s okay,” Minseok says, suddenly kindly. “Death is the next great adventure. Thank you, all of you. What you seek is inside. You will find your exit at the back of the hall.”

“What will happen to you?” Chanyeol asks.

“Do not mourn us, young human,” Minseok says. “Lu Han and I will be fine. We’ve done our duty and paid for our crime, and now it’s time for us to go home.”

“Do you really want to be away from me that badly?” Lu Han asks. He sounds like he’s about to cry.

“I don’t think we will ever be apart, Lu Han,” Minseok says. “We will be together in spirit, if nothing else. Password is Twelve Heavens; if you intone it, the door will open for you automatically. Goodbye humans, enjoy your treasure.”

“What was your crime?” Jongin asks quickly.

“We told Mummy the hoard was ugly,” Lu Han says.

And then the statues are gone.

“Erm,” Jongin says. “That was weird.”

“It was,” Kyungsoo agrees.

“Who makes children become statues, watching a hoard of treasure for hundreds of years, just because they thought it was ugly?” Chanyeol asks.

“Of course that’s what you got out of that,” Kyungsoo says fondly, sliding his hands into Chanyeol’s hair.

“Twelve Heavens,” Yixing says.

The enormous stone before them swings open.

The hoard is not ugly, Kyungsoo thinks. It’s spectacularly shiny; all kinds of metals mixed together. Gold, silver, bronze, copper, all in one big pile. There is jewellery, and crockery, and armour. There is even a sword with a ruby handle. Chanyeol balances it in his hand and then ties the scabbard onto his belt.

“Has anyone got any bags?” Kyungsoo asks faintly, having never seen so much money in his entire life.

“Of course,” Chanyeol says, and he retrieves their burlap sack from his small bag. Without any finesse, he begins to shovel coins into the bag, until it’s so heavy he can barely carry it. When Kyungsoo looks over, he can see Jongin with his own huge bags—Kyungsoo can’t imagine how Jongin is going to carry those, but he doesn’t say anything. Yixing seems sad, but there’s no way he can carry a heavy bag with a broken rib.

“One of these is yours,” Jongin says. “Don’t look at me like that.”

Yixing beams.

Kyungsoo doesn’t have an empty bag, so he finishes his snacks and uses the bag they’d been kept in to collect his own small bag of money.

Once they’ve got their fill of the treasure, they explore the room, and Yixing discovers a partition in the back wall.

“There are stairs here,” he says, and he slowly makes his way up. Kyungsoo follows him, checking on where the stairs lead to.

There must be some magic at work, because only one short flight of stairs leads them to a stone that, when rolled out of the way, opens out into the outside world.

The four of them roll the stone back into place, making it look like it was never disturbed, and then make their way slowly back to Rowley.

 

Between Kyungsoo and Chanyeol, they have enough money to pack up and head towards the port town of Effotte, so they say their goodbyes. Sungmi and Yifan had been aware they’d only been there temporarily, though they are understandably disappointed that they can’t stay anyway.

“You’ve been such a fantastic help, Kyungsoo,” Sungmi tells him, a sad look on her face. “I’ll miss you, and the library will be a sadder place with you gone.”

But Kyungsoo’s resolve is set, and so they pack their belongings into new burlap sacks, make sure that their money is distributed evenly throughout, and hire two horses. They strap their belongings onto the saddles, making sure it’s not too much weight for the horses to handle; two sturdy, solidly-built stallions; one brown and one white.

The journey to the port town takes the best part of a day on horseback, so they set off early in the morning, heading to find a boat to take them to Kyungsoo’s past.

 

Effotte is a large and sprawling port town, and from the moment they reach it they can already see the huge ships in the harbour. Kyungsoo estimates there must be five or six ships up to the task of transporting them to Merle, but he isn’t sure exactly how to grade them on which is the best to take, having never sailed before.

They store the horses in a stable where the owners promise to take them back to Rowley for just a few gold coins, and then make their way down to the harbour.

However, by this point it’s late in the day and none of the ships’ crew are still about, so Kyungsoo and Chanyeol head to a nearby inn and book a room. This time, the innkeeper doesn’t even blink at the fact they’re only asking for one room.

They have to force themselves to leave their room to eat dinner because the bed looks so warm and inviting that they’re tempted just to go straight to sleep. But instead they eat a hot meal of minced beef, rice and a fried egg, washed down with real ale that is even better than that of their last inn, before they head off to collapse into bed.

Their bed is so warm that after they climb in, bodies pressed against each other, they don’t leave it until late in the next morning. By this point, several of the large ships have already left the harbour. Kyungsoo hopes they weren’t the best ones to pick. They’re left with a choice of three.

They ask the innkeeper which would be the best to take across to Merle.

“Oh,” he says, “the old _Victoria_ is going strong. Her Captain’s done the trip a right many times, but she goes the long way round, so she’ll take over a week to get you there. Most ships here do, except the _Twelfth Heaven_. She takes the direct route—her Captain’s a bit of a funny one. If you need to get there in a hurry, she’s your best bet.”

Kyungsoo’s ears perk up at the name—it’s just like the password that Minseok had given them. It has to be a sign. When he turns to Chanyeol, his eyes are wide and his mouth curved into a smile.

“Soo!” he whispers, “it’s just like—!”

“Yes, I know,” Kyungsoo says, cutting him off before he can blab all their secrets to the innkeeper.

“Why is it strange she takes the direct route?” Chanyeol asks.

“The siren, of course,” the innkeeper says. “There’s a young lad who lives on the rocks on the way to Merle. Sings a lovely tune, and all the single men on the ship get drawn to him. We’ve lost many boats to him.”

“That’s awful!” Kyungsoo says. “So why does this captain keep going that way?”

“Nobody knows,” the innkeeper replies. “We’ve asked, but he only smiles. You should ask him yourselves. You may have better luck than us old folk. Young Jongdae’s always interested in telling his story to newcomers.”

They thank the innkeeper and head back to the harbour.

They find _Twelfth Heaven_ easily enough. She’s a beauty; a grand wooden sailing ship with two masts stretching high into the sky, though small enough to be manned by a decently-sized crew. The ship was solidly built, and there is plenty of room under the deck for the crew to sleep. She’s the spitting image of one of the old galleons from old books Kyungsoo’s read, only with a small crew, rather than the two hundred passengers and crewmembers of the ships in his books. Kyungsoo thinks that she is absolutely perfect.

The gangplank is down, but they wait until a member of the crew is scurrying by before Kyungsoo calls up, “Can we speak with your Captain, please?”

The young man agrees to find him. They don’t have to wait more than a few minutes before he appears, and he walks down the gangplank to meet them at the bottom.

Jongdae can’t be too many years older than they are, but he looks like he’s seen all kinds of weather, and it’s hardened him to everything. He smiles at them, but there’s definitely steel in his lined jaw and the set of his shoulders. “What can I do for you?” he asks, after their introductions.

“We want to go to Merle,” Kyungsoo says. “We were told that you’re the fastest way of getting there?”

Jongdae beams and puffs his chest out in a way that confirms his young age for Kyungsoo. “You’re not wrong!” he says. “We can take you there in four days flat, for only twenty gold coins apiece.”

“That’s not a problem,” Chanyeol says. “We can give you that.”

“Wonderful!” Jongdae says. “Then you’ll be very welcome aboard. When will you be wanting to leave?”

“When can you get the ship ready by?” Kyungsoo asks.

“An eager man, I see!” Jongdae says. “Tomorrow morning at earliest. That’ll give us time to stock provisions in case the weather turns on us, but we should be fine. It’s usually nice sailing this time of year.”

“That’s brilliant,” Kyungsoo says. “And when will you want us on the boat?”

Jongdae tells them to be there around nine in the morning, because they’ll set sail when the tide is high.

“Just one more thing,” Chanyeol interrupts, as Kyungsoo’s about to leave. “What’s this about a siren? Is it safe?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Jongdae says. “Baekhyun’s harmless, mostly.”

“Oh?” Kyungsoo asks. “You know him?”

Jongdae smiles, but his smile is the crooked smile of someone not telling the whole truth. “Somewhat, yes. We’ve been taking this route for a long time now.” His smile becomes more natural, as he continues, “We have a routine for how to cope when he’s nearby. You’ll understand when we come to it. It’s perfectly fine.”

Kyungsoo nods, because that doesn’t seem too bad. “Thank you,” he says, and they head back to the inn for their last night on solid ground.

 

They’re up at the ship early the next morning, having no reason to be late. Kyungsoo has never wanted anything as badly as he wants to know where he comes from. He has no desire to miss this chance.

Chanyeol doesn’t seem to mind either, or at least he isn’t protesting about the early wake-up call, and he certainly seems excited about the prospect of visiting somewhere new.

“I bet it’s huge and leafy and, and filled with dragons!” Chanyeol says excitedly, bouncing along as they walk down to the ship. “I bet your parents are famous!”

“I was a slave,” Kyungsoo says.

“Maybe you were kidnapped and sold into slavery? Maybe your parents have been looking for you for years and when they find you everything will go right again?” Chanyeol looks wistful. “Maybe they’ll love me, too?”

Kyungsoo can’t think of anything to say, so he just reaches his hand behind him. A moment later, he feels the secure grip of Chanyeol’s larger hand encasing his own, and he smiles.

This time, when they reach the gangplank, they climb up it as if it’s their ship, which, Kyungsoo supposes, it kind of is for the next few days.

The crew is standing there, waiting for them. There are maybe as many as twenty people. Kyungsoo counts six women among them.

Jongdae is standing there at the front, and he greets both of them. “I’ll take you to your berths,” he says.

“Berths?” Chanyeol asks.

“Beds. Why?” Jongdae asks, and looks between the two of them with interested eyes. “Is that a problem?”

“No,” Kyungsoo replies, even though he doesn’t recall a day when he and Chanyeol haven’t shared a bed. He wonders what it’ll be like to sleep alone. He’ll probably have to get used to it, one day. “It’s fine,” he mutters, probably a beat after it would have been socially acceptable to reply. Jongdae doesn’t even seem to notice, just instead takes them down into the ship.

The steps down into the belowdecks that house the cabins of the ship are slippery, like they’ve just been washed but not yet dried, and Kyungsoo has to watch where he steps or risk dropping onto Chanyeol, who is climbing down before him. Once they’re safely down in one piece, Jongdae takes them along the corridor to the cabins.

“Your berths are in here,” Jongdae says, and he opens the door to a tiny room with two wooden platforms hammered into the wall, a ladder leading up to the second one. The beds aren’t very wide, and the mattresses are shallow, but Kyungsoo heaves a sigh of relief, and then quickly tries to make it seem like he didn’t, in case Jongdae gets curious. With them being the only ones in the room, they may be able to share one of the beds—although Kyungsoo isn’t entirely sure it’ll support their weight. It is possible that, like he’d thought before, they may have to sleep separately for once in their lives.

They leave their belongings on the bottom berth and then follow Jongdae back up onto the deck.

“Can we help you?” Chanyeol asks.

Jongdae looks surprised by his offer. “No,” he says. “Just take it easy.”

So Kyungsoo and Chanyeol stand over by the side facing Gowan and watch as slowly, once the ropes anchoring them to the pier have been thrown on-board and the gangplank lifted, they begin to drift away from the country they’ve called home for so many years, the country they’ve never left until now. Kyungsoo feels excitement thrum in his veins. This is it. It’s finally happening.

He’s going home.

 

There isn’t much to do on the ship except talk to the other crewmembers, something that Chanyeol does with seemingly great fervour. Kyungsoo catches him telling a young girl called Seulgi about their journey from Rowley to Effotte. Most of it’s true, but he throws some embellishments in there.

“We met this Seer on the way,” Chanyeol says. “He was so strange—just this tiny little man. He had bodyguards, and they were really grumpy, and wouldn’t let the Seer—Joonmyun, I think his name was? Anyway, they wouldn’t let him See for us.”

“That’s so mean,” Seulgi says. “I bet he would have Seen something amazing.”

“So do I,” Chanyeol says. “He could have told us whether Kyungsoo’s family are awesome or not.”

“I’m sure they’ll be awesome if you believe it,” Seulgi says, nodding her head so frantically that her long black hair sways in its ponytail.

Truthfully, Joonmyun hadn’t been that tiny, barely shorter than Kyungsoo, and his companions, Sehun and Zitao, hadn’t been bodyguards as such. They were just concerned that Joonmyun would be taken advantage of. He’d in fact offered to See for them once they encountered a lake, as he could only divine from water, but their paths had differed before they could reach any water. It had been a little disappointing, but not in the way Chanyeol was describing. But Kyungsoo doesn’t see any point in correcting Chanyeol. He can’t imagine that Seulgi will ever meet Joonmyun.

Right now, Kyungsoo just wants to be alone, away from Seulgi’s batting eyelashes, but on a ship with so many people that’s impossible. Instead, he finds himself at the bow of the ship, hands on the front-most part of the ship as she glides through the waves easily. Up here it’s as peaceful as it can be on an active ship, and the spray in his face calms him down.

He wonders what Merle will be like. He wonders if his family will be there, or if they’ve moved. And what’s more, for the first time, he wonders what Chanyeol will do—if he’ll stay there with Kyungsoo, or if he’ll head off on his own journey.

Kyungsoo hopes that Chanyeol will stay with him.

 

That night, after a satisfying meal of a thick stew and rice, Chanyeol and Kyungsoo make their way to their cabin.

“Shall we try?” Chanyeol asks, nodding to the lower berth. Kyungsoo nods, and Chanyeol climbs in first, Kyungsoo trying to fit in beside him. It’s a very tight and uncomfortable experience, with Kyungsoo hanging off the edge no matter how tightly Chanyeol clutches him to his chest.

“This isn’t really going to work,” Kyungsoo says.

Chanyeol ends up climbing into the top bunk to sleep. The cold wall against Kyungsoo’s back is a poor substitute for Chanyeol, and Kyungsoo finds it very difficult to fall asleep. Once he does, it’s particularly unsatisfying, peppered with disturbances every time they roll over a rough wave, and Kyungsoo wakes up grumpy and tired.

Chanyeol, on the other hand, is a cheerful morning person, so he seems to be alright, despite the bags under his eyes and the constant yawning.

Kyungsoo hates it.

 

There is nothing to be done during this second day at sea. Chanyeol attempts to play a game, but there are only so many times you can spy sea or clouds before it stops being fun.

Something exciting does happen partway through the day though; a gigantic creature, possibly a whale or a sea dragon, leaps above the sea away off into the distance, before disappearing back into the depths. That’s all they can talk about for the rest of the day—that enormous creature diving back into the sea, and how blessed they were to see it, if only for such a short period of time.

The sea begins to get rough settling into the evening, a storm brewing overhead. Dinner is unsettled and quick, most people hastening to either get into their cabins, or to prepare to look after the ship. A girl named Chorong, who doesn’t have the sturdiest of storm-weathering sea-legs, almost loses her grip as she slides on the suddenly slippery deck, and has to be rescued by Chanyeol. Chanyeol is one of those people with sea-legs. Kyungsoo feels jealous.

The problem is that Chanyeol may have sea-legs, but he’s petrified of the storm, so having sturdy legs is not really much use. When Kyungsoo thinks Chanyeol might cry, as thunder booms overhead, he bids the crew good night and hurries Chanyeol down the stairs, past a curious Jongdae.

There’s no chance of Chanyeol sleeping alone in a thunderstorm, so Kyungsoo climbs into bed first and pulls Chanyeol on top of him. He’s heavy, but it’s somewhat comforting even so. Eventually Chanyeol switches them around so that Kyungsoo’s lying on top of him.

“You’re lighter,” he explains. “I didn’t want to squish you.”

And that’s how they drift off together, hearts beating in time, Kyungsoo soothing Chanyeol enough to show that he’s not in any danger, even as the ship rocks violently.

 

They’re woken up the next morning by Jongdae.

“We’re near Baekhyun’s rocks,” he says by way of greeting, and then stops, as he seems to realise the position Kyungsoo and Chanyeol are in. “The two of you?”

“I don’t like storms,” Chanyeol says, from somewhere underneath Kyungsoo. “Kyungsoo is a comforting distraction.” He squeezes arms around Kyungsoo’s back.

Kyungsoo frowns, and he sits up, pulling himself out of Chanyeol’s grasp. “Stop talking nonsense,” he says. “I just make sure he can go to sleep. Nothing funny.”

“So...” Jongdae says, slowly, “...you might be affected by Baekhyun?”

Kyungsoo shrugs. “We’re both single,” he says. “It’s possible.”

“You’d better come up and be tied up with the rest,” Jongdae says. “Baekhyun can pierce dreams.”

They follow Jongdae up to the deck slowly. “We tie the single males to the mast when we go near Baekhyun’s rocks,” Jongdae explains. “They tend to get a bit excited when they hear Baekhyun’s singing. He only works on men, so the women and the men in relationships help steer us away so we don’t crash into Baekhyun’s rocks. It may seem a bit undignified, but it’s necessary.”

Already, nine of the fourteen male crew are tied to the mast with thick rope. It winds around them in multiple places, pinning them there so that they can’t move. Kyungsoo bites his lip as he stands next to a young man called Hoonmin whose arms are almost as solid and defined as Chanyeol’s. Chanyeol stands on his other side, and they’re strapped in, their hands entwined.

Kyungsoo only starts to realise that this is real when he can’t move. He wonders what it’s like to lose control of his mind, to fall in love with a voice he can’t have, and to go mad trying to get to it. The idea terrifies him, and he ends up squeezing Chanyeol’s hand tightly in his panic.

Soon, they begin to hear soft lyrics, blowing over in the wind, which is blowing the wrong way to be of much use to the ship and their crew. Hoonmin’s ears seem to prick up in excitement the way a cat’s do when it recognises its name. “Baekhyun!” he calls, and he begins to wriggle in his bonds.

The rest of them do as well, struggling to get out of bindings that won’t let them out.

But nothing happens to Kyungsoo, or to Chanyeol next to him. Kyungsoo looks over at Chanyeol, who is strangely quiet, and does his best to shrug. He keeps expecting it to take over him as they get closer and closer to Baekhyun’s singing, but it doesn’t.

“Erm,” Kyungsoo says. “Well this is boring.”

Jongdae, who has been standing at the edge of the ship, watching as everything comes closer, turns in surprise. “Kyungsoo?” he asks.

“I was expecting something to happen,” Kyungsoo says, “but I don’t feel any different.”

Jongdae’s brows furrow. “I’m not sure if this is a trick,” he says.

And then Kyungsoo hears, “Jongdae!” called from beyond the side of the ship. Jongdae turns away to face it.

“Baekhyun!” he greets. “It’s nice to see you!”

“Are you going to come and see me? You know what the storms always do to me.”

“Of course I am!” Jongdae calls down. He turns to face Seulgi. “Drop the anchor down. I’ll be gone a while.” And then he jumps overboard like he’s leaping a wall. After a long, tense moment, there’s a splash.

Kyungsoo takes a deep breath and holds it in his panic. Where’s Jongdae going? What’s he going to do?

“Don’t worry,” Chorong says. An untied man called Myungsoo agrees, nodding his head.

“He does this every time,” Myungsoo says. “He goes and spends an hour with the siren, and then he comes back on board and we head on.”

“What does he do?” Chanyeol asks.

“Jongdae is Baekhyun’s favourite,” Seulgi says, as if that explains everything. She pauses, and then adds, “And Jongdae loves him.”

This additional statement clicks in Kyungsoo’s mind. “But doesn’t that mean Jongdae’s under his spell?”

“You’d think that,” Chorong says, “but you’d be wrong. He’s completely lucid. Baekhyun’s singing only worked on him once, but Jongdae’s addicted. None of the rest of these men,” she indicates the others tied to the mast, “even remember what they did or said when they were under Baekhyun’s influence, but he remembers everything.”

Kyungsoo doesn’t know how to respond to this. “Neither Chanyeol or I are affected,” he says. “Can we be let out?”

“Sorry,” Seulgi says. “It’s just safer that we don’t. We might let the rest of them out by mistake.”

Kyungsoo drops his head back to rest against the wood and he sighs.

“Do you know what I can see?” Chanyeol tries.

Kyungsoo shuts his eyes and prays for the ability to sleep standing up.

 

Jongdae is back within the hour, pink-cheeked and a bit ruffled. Kyungsoo can instantly tell what he’s been up to, and he tries to wipe it all from his mind. He doesn’t want to think about that.

“He was rougher than usual,” Jongdae says cheerfully. “I think the storm riled him up.”

Kyungsoo wishes he could cover his ears, but he still can’t move his hands.

They move from Baekhyun swiftly, until Baekhyun’s singing is lost in the wind. Once Baekhyun’s long gone, they’re untied from their bonds. It’s like watching sleepwalkers wake up. Hoonmin blinks his eyes and looks around him. “Huh?” he asks.

“It’s okay,” Kyungsoo says.

Chanyeol takes it a step further and pats Hoonmin on the shoulders. Chanyeol’s easily a head taller than him and the effect is overwhelmingly patronising. Kyungsoo leads Chanyeol away quickly before anything can happen.

They make small-talk, skirting around the topic of Baekhyun. Neither of them want to say anything about it—or at least Kyungsoo presumes Chanyeol doesn’t want to say anything. It makes it easier not to think about it.

“I’m going to find my book,” Kyungsoo says, when the conversation gets too strained, and he heads to their bunk and curls up on his hard but somehow still comforting bed, avoiding the rest of the world until dinner.

That night they sleep in their separate bunks. Kyungsoo is plagued by dreams of mysterious figures entwined together, Baekhyun’s beautiful but haunting singing in the background.

Kyungsoo has no idea what’s going on.

 

This is the last day on the ship, and honestly it can’t end soon enough. Four days on a ship is enough, Kyungsoo thinks, when land comes into view at midday. He loves land far too much, and he wants to be touching it soon.

It’s only another hour before they dock in the harbour of Merle. The town, once they’re off the ship—it’s strange being onshore after such a long time at sea, and it takes Kyungsoo’s legs some time to get used to not having to balance in preparation for a rough wave—is a pretty little port town called Warkham.

The people of Merle speak a different language to the language that Kyungsoo and Chanyeol speak. They have to use Chorong, who speaks it fluently, to ask how to get to Mithrim.

It’s only a few hours away. Chorong helps them hire a horse to share, and then it’s time to say goodbye to everyone on the ship.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” Jongdae says. “We’ll stay docked here for another day. If it doesn’t work out, you can come back.”

Kyungsoo thanks him, but secretly hopes that it’ll be alright here, even despite the lack of common language.

Their ride to Mithrim is silent but for the birds cheeping in the air. They don’t see a monster once. Kyungsoo isn’t even sure if Merle _has_ monsters, from what he can see.

Mithrim is a huge town, bustling with people, and full of tall buildings. Kyungsoo has absolutely no idea where to look, so they wander around the town, hoping to find something.

It doesn’t take them more than thirty minutes to find an enormous mansion, set aside from the rest of the town, its doors wide open. There are people streaming in and out of the doors constantly.

“We should try there,” Kyungsoo says, pointing up at it, and Chanyeol nods and follows him up the steps towards the house.

The inside is just as grand as the outside, all done up to show off as much wealth and money as possible.

“Hello,” a girl standing inside the door greets them. Her hair is long and light, an unusual blonde colour. “We are opening for Do House.” Her words are clumsy but still easy to understand, and Kyungsoo appreciates her efforts, as neither he nor Chanyeol understand any of the other language they hear about the place. “Welcome to look at house.” Then she holds her hand out and asks for a type of coin that Kyungsoo’s never heard of.

“Are these okay?” he asks, holding out a gold coin. She takes it and bites it, testing it.

“Yes,” she says. “Two more.”

He hands over the coins, and they’re ushered into the mansion.

They walk slowly around the house, looking at all the beautiful paintings and grand furniture. Many of the paintings are supported by blocks of texts, some of which are translated into awkward but understandable words. It’s a lot of fun, reading about where certain paintings are from.

Then suddenly they’re faced with a family portrait of a man and a woman. They look stern, and the description states that they’re the Dos who owned this mansion, before leaving several years ago.

“They look like you,” Chanyeol says quietly. “They look _exactly_ like you.”

Kyungsoo feels it in his bones. These are his parents. He has to find out more.

He crosses the room to find the blonde girl. “What do you know about the Dos?” he asks.

She shrugs. “Very rich people. Not here anymore. We have house open for money.”

That isn’t very helpful, but Kyungsoo knows he won’t get anything else out of her. He turns to leave the house, to find someone else who knows anything about them.

“You’re looking for the Dos?” comes a voice from behind them. Kyungsoo turns to find a young woman standing there. She’s pretty, with soft features and long brown hair, but there’s an aspect of her that looks hardened, possibly by hard work. She turns away to say something to the blonde girl in their language, and that girl leaves, heading across the room to help an old man up the main flight of stairs.

Kyungsoo’s eyes are wide in excitement. “Yes?” he asks. “Did you know them?”

“I’m the daughter of their servant,” she says. She speaks the language much better than the girl who had been at the entrance does, which confuses Kyungsoo, considering she’s supposed to be a servant. Or maybe, even though she’s the daughter of a servant, she may not be a servant herself. She does look somewhat like she belongs in the mansion. “I’m Jayoung. I did know them, yes.”

“Can you tell us about them?” Chanyeol asks.

“Why?” Jayoung asks, suspicion clouding her face.

“I think I’m their son,” Kyungsoo says. “I just want to know who they are, what they were like.”

A combination of disgust, horror and revulsion crosses Jayoung’s face, and she shakes her head. “I can’t help you,” she says. “You are the reason I haven’t seen my mother in years.”

Kyungsoo frowns. He feels like he’s in a conversation where he only knows half of the information. “I don’t understand,” he says. “I was only a baby when I left.” He looks up at Jayoung, hoping his eyes can implore her to help. “Please, help me understand what happened to your mother.”

Jayoung, who had just been about to leave, stops and turns back towards them. “Your parents were very rich and very nasty people who didn’t want a baby. So they foisted you on my mother. I was only four when you were born.”

Kyungsoo’s eyes get wider, because he hadn’t expected this. He’d considered that maybe his parents sold him for money, but he’d never considered that they had money. He’d scoffed at all of Chanyeol’s ideas, but apparently he’d got that part right—it was everything else he’d got wrong.

“They had this illusion of being powerful and childless, and people got too close to working out that you were their child. So they got rid of you,” Jayoung continues. “They sold you and my mother both to the slave traders. I was lucky; they’d forgotten about me, and my mother ordered me to hide when the slavers came. She saved me, but she couldn’t save herself.” She looks Kyungsoo up and down. “You don’t look like a slave.”

“No,” Kyungsoo says. “I was rescued by one of the slaves and left in a village. The slave was killed.”

Jayoung sucks in a loud breath. She looks like she’s going to pass out. “Was it my mother?” she asks, her voice trembling.

Kyungsoo realises what he’s done, and trembles, shaking his head. He hadn’t meant to upset her with his careless words.

“No,” Chanyeol says. “It was a man. I’m so sorry. I wish we could help you.”

Jayoung steps away from them. “The only way you’ll help me is to do what the Dos did; leave town and never return.”

Chanyeol looks like he’s going to start a fight over this, but Kyungsoo touches his arm lightly to stop him. “I understand,” Kyungsoo says softly, even though he feels like his soul has dropped. There’s a heavy weight on his shoulders that wasn’t there before they’d come. Suddenly he wishes he’d never wanted to find out about his family. He’d wanted to know, but he hadn’t wanted to know _this_. This isn’t happy families. He’s the son of wealthy and selfish people who destroyed not only his life, but the lives of Jayoung and her mother. Jayoung’s mother could be anywhere by now. She could even be dead.

And just like that, the dam is broken. Silent tears stream down Kyungsoo’s cheeks. He rubs at them in horror and embarrassment and races out of the building.

It’s raining outside, which just seems to reflect Kyungsoo’s mood. Everything he’d wanted, everything he’d hoped for, was a lie. He’s not Do Kyungsoo—or whatever name he’d been given. He doesn’t want to ask Jayoung what he’d been called, because that’s not who he is. He’s Kyungsoo, who’d grown up in the orphanage with Chanyeol, his best friend and the one person who’s been with him since the beginning.

It’s as he thinks this that arms embrace him. “It’s okay, Soo,” Chanyeol whispers. “It’ll be alright.”

Kyungsoo sure hopes so.

Instead of replying, he just burrows further into Chanyeol’s hold, knowing that he’s getting Chanyeol wet with his tears as well as the rain. But Chanyeol doesn’t complain; he just continues holding him even as the rain comes down and soaks both of them.

When Kyungsoo feels like he isn’t going to sob any more, he reluctantly pulls out of Chanyeol’s hold and looks up at him; his tall, strong, dependable friend.

“I’m sorry,” Kyungsoo says. “My journey’s over, but I never thought to ask about yours.”

Chanyeol shrugs his shoulders. “I never had a journey to embark on. My parents died in a fire. People found me during a thunderstorm the next day and took me to the orphanage. Apparently it was amazing that I’d survived.” That explained why Chanyeol was so scared of thunderstorms, Kyungsoo realises, and he reaches up to give Chanyeol another hug. “It’s okay,” Chanyeol says, “but I never needed to find anything out about myself because I already know everything.”

“Okay,” Kyungsoo says, pulling back. “Why did you come with me on this journey then?”

“Because I wanted to,” Chanyeol says. “You’re…you’re my only family, Kyungsoo. Without you, I don’t know what I’d do. All I want to do is see you happy, and I…” He stops, and shakes his head. Kyungsoo thinks he might be tearing up. He can’t bear to see Chanyeol cry, knowing it’ll set him off again, so he turns away and stares out at the town until the prickle in his eyes settles.

“I’m sorry it was so useless,” Kyungsoo says softly. “It wasn’t what either of us wanted to hear.”

“It wasn’t useless,” Chanyeol says. He definitely sounds like he’s going to cry, but as he talks his voice grows more stable. “We may not have found out what you wanted to find out, but we’ve done so much, and we’ve learnt so much.” He pauses. “Can you answer one question for me?”

He sounds so serious that Kyungsoo spins back to face him. Chanyeol looks it, too, face solemn and eyes boring holes into Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo knows that whatever Chanyeol asks him is important, and he’ll have to be truthful. “What is it?” he asks.

The question Chanyeol asks is not one that Kyungsoo had expected.

“Why didn’t Baekhyun work on you?”

Kyungsoo opens and shuts his mouth, because, quite frankly, he has no answer for this. “I…don’t know,” he says. “I’ve never thought about it before. I just figured that it was a load of rubbish. It didn’t work on you, either.”

“Yeah,” Chanyeol says. “But I know _exactly_ why it didn’t work on me. I knew that it wasn’t going to work on me the moment we were told about it. But I thought Baekhyun would affect you, and he didn’t.”

Kyungsoo frowns. “I don’t…I don’t understand? We were both single, and I don’t…”

Baekhyun’s singing have worked on all single males who weren’t in love with someone, according to the story. Both Kyungsoo and Chanyeol were single. But if Chanyeol had known the whole time, then he’d kept a secret back from Kyungsoo. A big secret.

“You’re in love with someone?” Kyungsoo asks. “Is that it? Is that why you knew that Baekhyun wouldn’t affect you?”

Chanyeol gives him the strangest smile. “Yeah,” he says.

“You…didn’t tell me,” Kyungsoo says.

“I didn’t know how,” Chanyeol says. “But what about you? You must be in love with someone too.”

Kyungsoo makes a face. He really doesn’t want to think about this right now. He doesn’t want to think about feelings he may or may not have, and who they may or may not be for. He just wants to find a comfortable bed, and he wants to curl up in it, preferably with his own personal Chanyeol heater to hold him and warm him up, and he wants this never to have happened.

Chanyeol rolls his eyes. “Come now, Kyungsoo. You know it wasn’t a load of rubbish; you saw the way the single crewmembers reacted. They tried to rip themselves out of their restraints to get to him. Baekhyun’s singing worked on all of them, but not on you. You’ve been hiding something from me, too.”

Kyungsoo would settle for being back in Rowley. They could become a treasure hunting duo like Jongin and Yixing—except no, Kyungsoo would never cope. He’d send Chanyeol out alone, but he’d get too worried about him never coming home for it to work. Maybe not, then.

“I’m not hiding anything from you,” Kyungsoo says, frustrated at himself, at Chanyeol, at stupid but terrible treasure hunters Jongin and Yixing, and at Minseok who’d been frustrated but accepting of his lifelong companion and Lu Han, said companion who’d loved him so much that he couldn’t be without him. Lu Han had said he couldn’t sleep without Minseok’s snoring. Kyungsoo can’t sleep without Chanyeol’s warmth pressed up against his back, and that’s not something that can be replaced by finding someone else to grow old with, because they won’t be as tall as Chanyeol, or as warm as Chanyeol, or as cuddly as Chanyeol. They won’t be frustrating and make Kyungsoo want to punch them, or as affectionate and kind as Chanyeol can be when he’s trying to look after Kyungsoo, even though Kyungsoo can look after himself a lot better than Chanyeol can look after either of them—regardless of the strength Chanyeol’s built up from all the sword-fighting, regardless of how quickly he can lop the head off a Minotaur with one clean blow of his sword. On that note, someone else won’t have Chanyeol’s stupidly impressive muscular arms that hold Kyungsoo _just right_. They won’t flail about like they’re being attacked by flies whenever they’re excited, and they won’t steal all the covers, and they won’t make awful jokes that aren’t funny. They won’t always see the bright side of life and everything in it.

They won’t be Chanyeol.

And Kyungsoo realises what everyone else has been seeing since they started this journey; all the raised and waggled eyebrows about their rooming arrangements. The way Jongdae had instantly accepted the fact that Baekhyun hadn’t worked on them, and why he’d not been entirely surprised by them trying to share a berth. The way he’d nodded and laughed when Kyungsoo protested they weren’t together and he didn’t understand why people thought they were.

Kyungsoo understands everything.

“I’ve never hidden anything from you,” he says. “You know everything about me.”

The smile on Chanyeol’s face builds, growing wider and toothier as the meaning of Kyungsoo’s words sinks in. “I travelled across the ocean with a semi-insane Captain for you,” he says, with a grin. “But I was never going to succumb to the siren.”

The _because I have you_ goes unsaid, but it’s as loud as a siren to Kyungsoo’s ears.

There’s a smile the mirror image of Chanyeol’s across his own face. “You’re not my family,” Kyungsoo says, decisively. “You’ve never been my family.”

Chanyeol’s smile drops for a second as confusion sets in.

“You’ve always been so much more to me,” Kyungsoo finishes, and he stands up on his tiptoes, rests a hand on the back of Chanyeol’s neck, and brings him down to where Kyungsoo can kiss him.

Kyungsoo’s never kissed anyone before, but it’s alright, because neither has Chanyeol. It’s slow, gentle, awkward, messy, and utterly perfect.

When they separate, there’s a dazed but happy look on Chanyeol’s face. “I knew this was a brilliant idea,” he says. “You can’t survive without me. You need me to make sure you don’t die.”

It’s like a strange echo of that first day, when Kyungsoo had been told about their room being needed, and Chanyeol had insisted on coming along with him.

“I’m glad you came along with me, on this adventure,” Kyungsoo says, feeling uncomfortably sappy. “You’re right. It has been worth it.” He entwines his fingers with Chanyeol’s somewhat unsurely. They’ve never held hands this way before, and he wonders if it’s alright.

Chanyeol squeezes his hand. “The question is,” he says, “where are we off to next? What’s our next great adventure?”

“I’m not sure it’s an adventure,” Kyungsoo says, “but I really want a dragon.”

Chanyeol’s eyes light up. “Alright,” he says. “If we hurry, we should be able to make it back to the _Twelfth Heaven_ before Jongdae sets sail back to Gowan. And then we can make our way to West Darger and get ourselves a dragon.”

And together they set off, hands swinging between them, back to where they belong, a new adventure on the horizon.


End file.
